Old Royal Southern Hospital

I spent a lot of time in Hospital as a child in the early 60's and remember a very old building, very elaborate and ornate, but at a reunion with my relatives was shown a completely different picture of the Royal southern to what I remember. It was close to the docks as I recall and it had many floors with old lifts and intricate corridors.
Am I just imagining the whole thing?
Did it exist? can any one help at all? it may be that I got it confused with a different Hospital but I dont think so.

I spent a lot of time in Hospital as a child in the early 60's and remember a very old building, very elaborate and ornate, but at a reunion with my relatives was shown a completely different picture of the Royal southern to what I remember. It was close to the docks as I recall and it had many floors with old lifts and intricate corridors.
Am I just imagining the whole thing?
Did it exist? can any one help at all? it may be that I got it confused with a different Hospital but I dont think so.

Sounds like the Southern !, my Dad was in there when I was little, I remember the long corridors with a coved ceiling and lots of clean starched aproned nurses who disapproved of me being there to visit him !.
Visiting times were very regimented, Dad also said that the matron used to come around every morning and ask about " their bowels".
It was also known as the Dockers hospital as it was the nearest to the south docks and Dad always was either taking someone there or going himself.
The building always rememinded me of the old Higsons brewery !

Thanks squigs, I thought I was going loopy. I still have dreams about this Hospital and yes, it was very 'efficient' and managed by strict matrons.
Huge place and very old. So does it still stand or has it been replaced?
I am searching for pics of it on the net.

I spent a great deal of time in Fazakerly Hospital too as I contracted Polio as a child and was recently informed that it is now a prison.

Another huge place with annexes and a woods I think.

Gregs dad, thank you for the pic but it doesnt ring any bells with me, unless the main entrance is at a different angle? It was definately called the Royal or Royal Southern.

My local hospital. Demolished in the 1980s when the Royal came on-line. I spent many times in outpatients waiting. I was never in the wards. It was in Caryl St on the corner of Hill St.

A friend of mine lived on the first floor of Caryl Gardens opposite. As a kid he was in the children's ward opposite - right opposite his window and his Ma and Pa waved all the time. He was teeded off when he saw them sneaking off on hols as he was in for 3 weeks. The hold were booked.

Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
canals to view its modern museum describing
how it once was?

Royal Southern Hospital
The Southern and Toxteth Hospital was opened on 17 January 1842 in Greenland Street with thirty beds. However, the demand for accommodation was so great that the number of beds was increased to sixty-five. It was decided to add another storey to the building. Much of the money needed for this work was raised by a concert given by Jenny Lind at the Royal Amphitheatre in January 1849. The enlarged hospital reopened with accommodation for seventy more patients. At first, however, only eighty-six beds were in use. Not until after the Crimean War were the 100 beds necessary to qualify as a medical school in use.

Despite numerous innovations the hospital was overcrowded so it was decided to build a new hospital in Caryl Street. The foundation stone was laid in October 1867 and the hospital was formally opened by H.R.H. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, on 21 May 1872. By Permission of Queen Victoria the title of "Royal" was given to the hospital (its name having already been changed from the "Southern and Toxteth Hospital" to the "Southern Hospital" in 1857).

In July 1937 the Liverpool United Hospitals Act was passed. It amalgamated four Liverpool voluntary hospitals (the Royal Infirmary, the David Lewis Northern, the Royal Southern and the Stanley Hospitals) into a single body. In 1948 the governing body - The United Liverpool Hospitals - was established.

The Southern Hospital was evacuated to premises in the Fazakerley Hospital for Infectious Diseases in 1939, and did not return to Caryl Street until 1950. During the war the Caryl Street site was used by the Admiralty as a training school for merchant navy gunners and named H.M.S. Wellesley. This Royal Southern Hospital was closed on the opening of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital in 1979.

I worked at the Southern Casualty as a Student Nurse around 1774/5 and walked down Caryl Street yesterday, really difficult to identify where exactly the hospital and the casualty used to be. Was it on the site of what is now an ambulance station??

Royal Southern Hospital

I remember the RSH with great affection. I worked there first as a medical student, when I met my wife who was a nurse there. Later I worked there as a houseman, and some years later as a Senior registrar. My wife became a sister in the Casualty Department which was across Caryl Street from the main hospital. Incidentally when during the war the main hospital was moved to Fazakerly the Casualty Department stayed to support those affected by the bombing.
I have many memories of this hospital and although I understand why it closed it was nevertheless sad when I returned to Liverpool a few years ago to find no trace whatsoever of this place which had been so important in my life.

My mum was there in the late 60s early 70s as an Auxillary Nurse. She was known as Lena Logan though her first name was really Nancy
She loved it there and had many friends.
l think she was mainly on the male and female medical wards and was moved around not kept on the one ward.